“Alphabet Inc’s Google faces a tougher regulatory landscape as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration looks poised to reverse Obama administration policies that often favored the internet giant in the company’s battles with telecoms and cable heavyweights, analysts say,” David Shepardson, Malathi Nayak and Julia Love report for Reuters. “Google had close ties with outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration, and its employees donated much more to defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton than to the Republican Trump.”

“In the most concrete sign yet that the tech policy balance may be tipping in favor of telecom firms ahead of Trump’s presidency, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday halted action on contentious regulatory reform measures opposed by companies such as AT&T Inc and CenturyLink Inc.,” Shepardson, Nayak and Love report. “In addition, the commission is now expected to reject FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s high-profile proposal to open up the $20 billion market for rented pay-TV set-top boxes, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. That measure would have dealt a big blow to cable companies and created an opening for firms such as Google and Apple Inc.”

“Obama had thrown his support behind the initiative, a move AT&T decried as an improper intervention on behalf of what it called a ‘Google proposal,'” Shepardson, Nayak and Love report. “The FCC’s moves came a day after Republican lawmakers urged Wheeler, a Democrat, to avoid any contested regulations in the waning days of the Obama administration, saying new rules would be subject to review by the incoming Republican-led Congress and Trump’s administration and ‘could create confusion if reversed.'”

“Among other regulations, Trump’s Nov. 8 election has increased the chances that Obama’s net neutrality rules, adopted by the FCC in early 2015, could be rolled back, analysts said. Most Republicans strongly oppose net neutrality, which requires internet service providers to treat all data equally and bars them from obstructing or slowing down consumer access to web content. The rules were a victory for internet firms like Google and Netflix Inc.,” Shepardson, Nayak and Love report. “During Obama’s presidency, more than 250 people moved between jobs at Google or related firms and the federal government, national political campaigns and Congress, according to a report this year by the Campaign for Accountability watchdog group’s Google Transparency Project. Eric Schmidt, Alphabet’s executive chairman, was seen at Clinton’s Election Night party wearing a staff badge in a widely circulated photo. ‘Certainly the sort of cozy relationship that Google enjoyed with the Obama administration is not going to continue with Trump,’ Jackdaw Research’s Dawson added.”

We don’t presume to know the best way to get there, but we support the concept of “Net Neutrality” especially as it pertains to preventing the idea of ISP’s blocking or otherwise impeding sites that don’t pay the ISP to ensure equal access. That said, we usually prefer the government to be hands-off wherever possible, Laissez-faire, except in cases where the free market obviously cannot adequately self-regulate (antitrust, for example). Regulations are static and the marketplace is fluid, so such regulation can often have unintended, unforeseen results down the road. We sincerely hope that there are enough forces in place and/or that the balances adjust in such a manner as to keep the ‘Net as neutral as it is today.

That we have the same Take over three years later should be telling. Government regulations are not a panacea, neither are the lack thereof. It’s all about striking a proper balance where innovation can thrive while abuses are prevented.

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17 Comments

Google, Soros, and Wall Street own Obama (and would have owned Hillary had she not been the worst U.S. presidential candidate since Mondale). Obama owned the FCC’s Wheeler, so the FCC did whatever Google wanted.

Who used government position to get rich? Why it was Hillary “Pay for Play” Clinton. Which party has more millionaires? Why it is the Democratic Party. Who ran a presidential campaign for much, much less money with better results? Why businessman Donald Trump, versus Hillary ‘Spends Other People’s Money With Abandon Results Be Damned” Clinton.

You guys are all going to get royally screwed!
You believe the nonsense propaganda and have started believing a sleazy sales man.
Why did your TRUMP charge millions off is own campaign to host events in his own property?
Why did TRUMP use foundation money to buy a million dollar portrait of himself for himself?
TRUMP university fraud.
I don’t understand the hate! Its not like TRUMP or Paul Ryan are better people.
After all your mother, wife, sister are all women and hopefully worthy of your respect.

And the Google hate: The company provides so many good quality free services. We all use them at-least we should have some gratitude.

Last but not least:

Hitler’s campaign was “Make Germany great again”.
He had 32% vote. (from people who wrongly believed Germany could have won WW1)
The opposition gave him a special post (Chancellor) to prevent the country from division.
After a fire incidence in their parliament he as chancellor declared emergency.
He hated PRESS – told everyone media is evil. (Russia, North Korea, China all hate Press and fully control them.)
Soon your country will join the list. Because you blame the wrong people for your frustrations.
As I said you are all going to get royally SCREWED.

Someways you all deserve what you get for the havoc created in the middle east.
After all God’s been watching this game for a long time.

Bloomberg News:The company confirmed Friday that it had been “likely” to move the work to Mexico in 2019 when its current contract with the United Auto Workers union expires. “We had planned to move the Lincoln MKC out of Louisville Assembly Plant,” probably to the Cuautitlan factory in Mexico, Christin Baker, a Ford spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Google getting screwed under a Trump administration–Trump is looking better and better. All Trump needs to do now is appoint Eric Schmidt at Ambassador to Turkmenistan or some other garden spot so we don’t have to see is ugly face anymore.

These Republican cockroaches don’t even get into office until January, yet there they are, prematurely jumping the gun, “urging” the FCC Chairman (and, no doubt, many others) to stop work on current regulations entirely — in case they contest/don’t like those regulations sometime during the upcoming four year Trump administration.

Wheeler’s almost certainly on their list for dismissal regardless — so he may as well ram through as much regulation as humanly possible — before the zealots arrive for their first day at ‘big’ school and start crying because they didn’t get everything they wanted, the annoying little pricks.

No sense ramming anything through that we’re going to obliterate in 62 days.

A reminder: Under Obama, the Democrats have lost over 900 state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, and 13 Senate seats. The Obama legacy is total failure. The Democrat Party is merely a regional party by all rational definition.

The Republican Party controls the governor’s office and both chambers of the state legislature, a governing trifecta in 24 U.S. states vs. the Democrats with only 6 (Wash., Ore., Calif., Hawaii, Del., and R.I.)

At the federal level, the Republican Party owns the governing superfecta:
1. Presidency
2. Senate
3. House
4. Supreme Court

Enjoy the Trump administration and the coming decades of a conservatively-stacked Supreme Court, cockroach boy. I certainly will.

The Obama “Net Neutrality” rules were not really that. Net Neutrality can be expressed in a paragraph. No
More than one page. What we got was massive dump of pre-Cambrian telco legislation no more suited to the Internet age than dial tones, operators switch boards, and busy signals. It was an attempted power grab over the heretofore unregulated free Internet. The Internet stands as a spectacular example of spontaneous order. I.e. What happens when the government is not involved.

Under Trump the Obama power grab will likely be rolled back, but there will still be no Net Neutrality. In spite of how smart John Oliver and staff think they are, Net Neutrality is a dead horse. If Obama had stuck to the simple rules, and not gone for the ‘Government controls the Internet’ play, I’m pretty sure they would have held. Unfortunately what he did is so egregious that it would have been flagged for dismantling by any Republican President.